In Argentina’s icy south, a political dynasty fades and a new power rises
RIO GALLEGOS, Argentina, (Reuters) - Alicia Kirchner, an elder of Argentina’s most powerful political dynasty, recalls with fondness helping build homes, schools and the first hospital in Rio Gallegos, a small city in the country’s windswept Patagonian south.
The Kirchner family, which includes two of the last four presidents in Argentina, have ruled with dominance for decades here in the icy southern province of Santa Cruz, a region they call home, where they own land, investments and hotels.
That dynasty - the leftist core of the powerful Peronist movement - is now waning, a tectonic shift in the country’s political power dynamics, with a new force that has burst onto the scene in the form of far-right outsider Javier Milei.
Milei, who wants to “chainsaw” the political status quo, is the favorite to win a first round general election on Sunday after he scored a shock victory in an open primary vote in August, including taking the biggest vote share in Santa Cruz.
The libertarian economist has ridden a wave of voter anger at inflation set to hit 200% this year and the worst economic crisis in two decades that has left twofifths of the population in poverty. Many blame the country’s recent rulers.
“Milei is a product of discontent,” Kirchner, 77, the outgoing governor of Santa Cruz, told Reuters at her official residence, not far from the mausoleum of her late brother and former president Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007).
“What worries me most is people have no hope,” she said.
Her sister-in-law Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president from 2007 to 2015, was - until recently - the undisputed star of Argentine politics. Fernandez de Kirchner handpicked the current President Alberto Fernandez in 2019 and remains his VP.